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I've heard that it wasn't just the officers involved in the court martial but enlisted people just doing routine paperwork behind the scenes who had their medals rescinded. Perhaps Trump should have taken his ire out with someone higher up in the command structure.
Since when do prosecutors get medals, just for being prosecutors? What is the true story?
This is Trump’s vindictive nature
Give a two-year old unlimited power and how do you think he will use it?
Wisely? Or based on self-interest, emotions, and flitting from interest to interest???
Trump is a two year old with all the power in the world....
A very scary position for the rest of us...
Consider Billy Mummy’s character in the “Twilight Zone” episode about the cornfield...
This is Trump’s vindictive nature
Give a two-year old unlimited power and how do you think he will use it?
Wisely? Or based on self-interest, emotions, and flitting from interest to interest???
Trump is a two year old with all the power in the world....
A very scary position for the rest of us...
Consider Billy Mummy’s character in the “Twilight Zone” episode about the cornfield...
The lead prosecutor, Cmdr. Christopher Czaplak, was removed from the case for conducting a warrantless surveillance program aimed at tracking emails sent by the defense team. Prosecutors were also accused of granting immunity in an effort to block defense witnesses from testifying, according to the Navy Times.
On another military forum, there was a push to get CIBs/CARs awarded to the drone operators who were sitting in a remote room located miles away from the target.
Another suggestion was that if you had malaria in VN you should be awarded a Purple Heart!
I don't right off hand know what "rock star" looks like among military lawyers. I expect no military lawyer doing his job could possibly earn the respect of a SEAL that was doing his job.
However, I did have the honor of serving on a couple of Navy ranking boards where part of the job was understanding that when the choice is between recommending promotion to PO1 for a ****-hot yeoman or a mediocre SEAL, you recommend the ****-hot yeoman.
An Achievement Medal is the least individual decoration of merit. A SEAL may get an Achievement Medal for one thing; a yeoman gets an Achievement medal for another thing, a lawyer gets an Achievement Medal for yet another thing...all are compared to others in their fields and the kinds of things they do in their fields. Like the commercial says, "You have your rock stars, we have our rock stars."
And as anyone who has been in the military should know, you can be awarded a medal for your own merit even if the operation is a failure.
I expect going in to this trial, the chances of a conviction looked pretty dim. The prosecutors were basically served a green weenie and told to look sharp choking it down. "Delivered the best possible legal case, blah, blah, blah..." Yeah, troops do get Achievement Medals for looking sharp while choking down green wienies, and something like this is probably what lawyers get Achievement Medals for.
I think it was a bad thing for the president to rescind Achievement Medals awarded to men who were served green weenies and told to look sharp while choking them down, and performed that duty. Just because he didn't like their mission doesn't mean they didn't do the job to the measure of earning an Achievement Medal.
My initial reaction to the medals was BS. After reading your post, I better understand.
POTUS didn’t award those medals—
But he is taking them away
Trump likely never read ANY of the documentation that went to bestow those medals
Whether that is DoD policies, gradual inclination to over-reward especially those who are not on the battlefield so they can keep up with those who are (a la the drone pilots and personnel who fight from Las Vegas)...
Trump IS a politician—plenty of people in the DoD, the DoJ, and any other government agency are politicians
He got were he is by voters—not merit—not by any civil service exam, interview process, working his way up from the ranks and certainly not any personal test of physical and mental skills on the battlefield
He is all about “politics”
There is nothing meritorious in Trump’s service to America
He is doing it for self-interest and personal aggrandizement
And anyone who has ever seen Trump “take one for the team” or “eat a green weenie”, point that out—because I guess I missed Trump’s examples of self-sacrifice and going the extra mile for the benefit of the team...
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